331-133 BC Hellenistic

By 331 BC Alexander III of Macedon (the Great) had defeated the Persians and claimed the vast Achaemenid Empire. After he died in 323 BC, the conquered territories were divided between his generals. Seleucus I Nicator (312-280 BC) became king of the eastern provinces stretching from Syria across Mesopotamia and Iran to western Central Asia. Greek language, culture and religion was introduced to these lands and for two centuries Hellenistic culture, a fusion of Greek and Near Eastern traditions, developed and flourished in the cities of the empire.

During the 3rd century BC the Seleucid king Antiochus III (reigned 223-187 BC) reclaimed and extended Seleucid lands, and in 200 BC forced the Egyptian Ptolemies to cede Palestine. Antiochus next crossed the Hellespont but this brought him into conflict with Rome who defeated his army and claimed much of Anatolia (modern Turkey). By the mid-2nd century BC the Seleucids had been driven from Palestine by Jewish forces. In Iran the Parthians were extending their power from their homeland in south-west Central Asia across Iran to Iraq where they established their final capital at Ctesiphon. During the 1st century BC King Tigranes of Armenia expanded into Syria and what remained of the Seleucid kingdom was finally brought to an end when the Roman general Pompey established Syria as a Roman province in 64 BC.